Two more shootings in 'gun-free zones' established by leftists 'for our safety'.

And then some idiot claimed one incident was PROOF! that armed citizens can't stop a shooting; I explained why that was bullshit. Oh, wait, that was you.———————————I used to live on a farm. I know what bullshit smells like.

Imaginos1892 wrote:Two more shootings in 'gun-free zones' established by leftists 'for our safety'.

I've never heard of WalMart being described as "leftist", nice little switcharoo you got going on there.

But then, going by your writing, I have to imagine that your daily life does include daily gun safety drills, a bulletproof vest is part of your everyday outfit, and that you're just always on edge and ready to defend yourself and the people around you using any of the multiple weapons you carry on your person whenever you leave the safety of .... wait, do you ever not carry guns?

How many crimes have you actively stopped from happening? How many criminals have you shot?

But yeah, ultimately, as Daryl said: You're fucked. Your country is fucked. Your culture is fucked. The overwhelming majority of people in any country, any culture, just want to live in peace and quiet and prosper in good health; the fact that according to you, noone can do that unless they are literally ready to kill their fellow citizens is really, really fucked up.

Also, you're always sidestepping the indisputable fact that incidents like these just do not happen anywhere else in the first world. And it's not the immigrants that are doing the killing. It's not the minorities in your own country that are doing it. In all of these cases, it's young white men who have been radicalized by people like you or TFLY or your own fucking President, into believing that they are under attack by "leftists" or "minorities" or "feminists".

And then some idiot claimed one incident was PROOF! that armed citizens can't stop a shooting; I explained why that was bullshit. Oh, wait, that was you.

OK, step by step.How do you prove that you aren't an "idiot"? Difficult to prove, but I can only point out that when I retired at 58 my employer didn't want me to and offered lots to keep me. The job I retired from was being the boss of several thousand highly trained professionals in the aerospace industry.Another hat I can wear is being raised on a sheep and cattle station (ranch), plus having owned my own smaller one as as sideline. So yes I do know what bullshit smells like. As I have pointed out before I am a gun owner, and have won various marksman qualifications over the years. Even at 70 years, I wish I could meet you on a 500 metres sniper range, as I usually win such meets.The point is that this isn't one incident. The US has averaged more than a mass shooting a day this year. Thus on many occasions the active shooter wasn't shot by a "good guy". In the Texas incident, I saw a "good guy" interviewed who did have his own gun in Wallmart, but decided to usher as many kids outside as he could escort, whereupon he was nearly shot by the arriving police.What I said that raised your ire, was that when I brought up the topic of about 30 innocent lives being snuffed out (along with as many families blighted for ever), your response wasn't "How dreadful", but that it was Wallmart's fault from preventing people being armed in their store. If you don't realise how psychotic that appears to everyone else you really do have a problem.I will further point out that this shouldn't be a left/right issue, so people calling for gun control won't always be the dreaded socialists.

Imaginos1892 wrote:Two more shootings in 'gun-free zones' established by leftists 'for our safety'.

And then some idiot claimed one incident was PROOF! that armed citizens can't stop a shooting; I explained why that was bullshit. Oh, wait, that was you.———————————I used to live on a farm. I know what bullshit smells like.

The E wrote:I have to imagine that your daily life does include daily gun safety drills

I learned not to do stupid shit with guns before I was ten years old. I don't have to re-learn that every day. I guess, some people do? That would explain a lot.

The E wrote:a bulletproof vest is part of your everyday outfit, and that you're just always on edge and ready to defend yourself and the people around you using any of the multiple weapons you carry on your person whenever you leave the safety of…

The inside of your head must be an exceedingly weird place. You might want to keep that to yourself.

There are a few evil wackos that do horrible things. There always will be. They must be stopped. They seek out places where they will be hardest to stop, to do their evil. You seem to have a fixed belief that only the government can do the stopping; we do not.

In a country of over 320 million, that is larger than all of Europe, those one-in-a-million wackos add up to quite a few.

Daryl wrote:I will further point out that this shouldn't be a left/right issue, so people calling for gun control won't always be the dreaded socialists.

Maybe it shouldn't be, but in this country it is. The ones that want to take our guns are the same ones that want to take our money, exclude the 'wrong' people from the 'right' places, destroy people's lives for saying the 'wrong' words, or not saying the 'right' ones, and generally empower the government to control our lives 'for our own good' because we are 'not smart enough' to decide our own good for ourselves. The ones that want the government to be responsible for everybody's lives because they don't want to take responsibility for theirs.———————————You can't have the government take away the rights of only the people you hate.

Daryl wrote:I will further point out that this shouldn't be a left/right issue, so people calling for gun control won't always be the dreaded socialists.

Maybe it shouldn't be, but in this country it is. The ones that want to take our guns are the same ones that want to take our money, exclude the 'wrong' people from the 'right' places, destroy people's lives for saying the 'wrong' words, or not saying the 'right' ones, and generally empower the government to control our lives 'for our own good' because we are 'not smart enough' to decide our own good for ourselves. The ones that want the government to be responsible for everybody's lives because they don't want to take responsibility for theirs.

It's telling that you think gun control means that someone will come and take your guns away.

The really responsible people want gun control because all the evidence so far points to that the US citizens aren't responsible in the least. Otherwise there would be less shootings. It's so easy and cheap to get weapons in the USA that the Mexican cartels smuggle weapons into Mexico from the USA FFS. If you don't think that's a problem there is no sane argument that will ever sway your thinking.

Btw, the population of Europe is ~740 million, more than double that of the USA (on an area slightly larger than the USA) so statistically speaking Europe must have more nutcases in total with everything else being equal - and Europe has only a fraction of the amount of shootings that happens in the USA. Wonder why that is...

---Jack of all trades and destructive tinkerer.Anyone who have simple solutions for complex problems is a fool.

Imaginos1892 wrote:The inside of your head must be an exceedingly weird place. You might want to keep that to yourself.

You're the person who blames people getting shot on the people getting shot, not me.

There are a few evil wackos that do horrible things. There always will be. They must be stopped. They seek out places where they will be hardest to stop, to do their evil. You seem to have a fixed belief that only the government can do the stopping; we do not.

I have a fixed belief that public safety and defense against foreign enemies and domestic criminals is one of the fundamental reasons why we have states, yes. And, in my experience, they are generally fairly decent at it, provided that people who believe that the state doesn't work and can't work for the good of the people don't get into power.

That societies need people willing and trained to do harm to others in their defense is a tragedy. But it's better than the alternative, which would be a society like yours; one in which personal defense is something you feel you need every day.

In a country of over 320 million, that is larger than all of Europe, those one-in-a-million wackos add up to quite a few.

I have refrained from commenting on these latest two mass shootings because I wanted to allow the shit to settle first. Also, inspite of my frequent acerbic comments when Europeans, Austrailians or Japanese are being killed in job lots in spite of their stringent gun laws, there are times when even TFLYTSNBN is emotionally impacted by such events. This is one of them.

Aside from evoking memories of when my brother was murdered by a robber who intentionally ran him down with a Dodge van, my late grandfather was shot by an armed robber. It is likely that grandpa survived only because the robber's Saturday Night Special jammed and the first, .22 caliber bullet that was aimed at his heart was literally deflected by his tie tac.

These two mass shootings also dredge up memories from when my neighbor's daughter was murdered by a mass shooter. My neighbor lives about 100 yards from my rental house that my psychopathic, pot plantationist tenant continues to reside in thanks to Judge Ladd Wiles. I will share the FBI's summary of the event:

On September 2, a 40-year-old deputy sheriff with the Skagit County Sheriff’s Department was killed in Alger while responding to a 911 call, and a 42-year-old trooper with the Washington State Patrol was injured in a vehicle pursuit involving the same suspect. The deputy, who had more than 6 years of law enforcement experience, arrived at the residence of the 911 caller around 3:30 p.m. The caller said her son was at a neighbor’s home and was acting strangely. The deputy drove to the neighbor’s home, and when the deputy knocked on the front door, a man opened the door and shot at her with a .44 magnum lever-action rifle. The deputy immediately returned fire from the top step near the door. The deputy retreated to her locked patrol car and finally to a nearby tree while returning fire. The deputy exhausted the ammunition in her three magazines, becoming incapacitated and unable to return fire. The suspect then approached her and shot her once in the head at close range. In addition to the fatal head wound, the deputy, who was wearing a protective vest, suffered 9 gunshot wounds to the front upper torso, below the waist, and in her arms/hands. The shooter continued his killing spree resulting in five dead and four wounded individuals. One of the wounded, a veteran Washington State trooper with 15 years of law enforcement experience, had responded to a request for assistance involving pursuit of the suspect’s vehicle just after 4:30 p.m. Planning to assist in pursuit from behind, the trooper mistakenly entered the highway in front of the alleged shooter’s vehicle. When the trooper learned that the suspect was being followed by an unmarked patrol vehicle, he slowed to try to let the truck pass, but the driver of the truck also slowed. The trooper then accelerated ahead of the truck and as he did, the driver fired a round from his rifle, striking the trooper in his left arm above the elbow. The trooper drove himself to a local hospital where he received treatment. The 28-year-old assailant, who had a previous criminal history that included violent crime and drug violations, was apprehended and charged with six counts of First-Degree Murder and Assault.

I would have to check my copy of the FBI data base, but I believe that the Wikipedia article on this event misidentified the rifle as a Winchester when IIRC it was a Strum Ruger. This is of course irrellevant. A lever action rifle is not a semiautomatic "assault rifle" and it does not have a high capacity magazine and is slow to reload. As this event demonstrates, a nutcase can commit mass murder with a lever action rifle just as well as with a magazine fed, semiautomatic rifle. There have been numerous mass murders comitted with pump actiin shotguns as well. While the muzzle velocity of a .44 Magnum carbine is unimpressive compared to most center fire rifles, it can pentrate soft Kevlar body armor and did pentrate Deputy Jackson's vest. The experience of having to gut and skin a deer that someone else had shot with a .44 Magnum carbine enables me to attest that the wounding capacity greatly exceeds that of a 5.56mm, AR-15.

My point here is that many jurisdictions that prohibit ownership of military style, semiautomatic rifles allow ownership of pump action and lever action rifles and shotguns which can be no less deadly. An aside to you British, General George Washington was a proponent of using Buck and Ball ammunition much to the consternation of the British. The Red Coats were getting killed by farmers armed with shotguns.

From my perspective the lesson fron this shooting is not societiy's failure to control access to firearms but society's failure to control a violent, psychotic criminals. Deputy Jackson had dealt with this psycho on many previous occassions and had a reputation for being able to deal with him without escalating to force (She was a very attractive woman). She literally walked into this encounter not understanding that the subject was going to escalate his violence. Another Deputy without her previous interactions with the perp might have been less complacent.

Just FYI, I do have some ambivalence about "Red Flag" laws. I fully support prohibiting convicted felons and drug addicts and drug dealers from possesing guns but with provisions to expunge records. My tenant was committing a Federal Felony by possessing guns while the marijuana grow was operating at the residence that he rents from me. Since the lawsuit against us was dropped after the discovery process compelled them to produce Oregon Medical Marijunna Program records that confirmed that the grow was never licensed and was therefore illegal under Oregon law as well as Federal law, my tenant was committing other, even more serious Federal felonies. Former US Attorney for the State of Oregon Amanda Marshall, who is Judge Wiles' wife, actually prosecuted people for operating a very similar grow. (This prosecution seems to have been concurrent with her affair with a subordinate. She actually invoked the Clintonian defense. Just as it really wasn't drug abuse because Bill didn't inhale, it really wasn't adultery because Amanda, just like Monica, didn't swallow. Of course her boyfriend testified that they were having intercourse as well as oral sex, and he didn't use condoms or pull out.)

Given the failure to have OMMP growers licenses and grow site permits, it was not possible for my tennants and their associates to sell to Oregon's licensed dispensaries as they claimed they repeatedly were doing under oath. Perjury is a felony under Oregon law. The most plausible market was to smuggle the pot out of state, probably in the big ass fifth wheel travel trailer that they bought or leased concurrently with installing the marijunna grow. A retired couple would be the perfect drug mules.

So the bottom line is that inspite of TFLYTSNBN's aversion to gun prohibition, given the failure of the State of Oregon amd the Federal government to prosecute or convict my tenants for illegal drig trafficking, agrevated assault, perjury, and extortion inder State and Federal RICO statutes, I would favor a Red Flag law that would prohibit them from possesing firearms. However; I would want any such lawto have serious safeguards.

Imaginos1892 wrote:Two more shootings in 'gun-free zones' established by leftists 'for our safety'.

And then some idiot claimed one incident was PROOF! that armed citizens can't stop a shooting; I explained why that was bullshit. Oh, wait, that was you.———————————I used to live on a farm. I know what bullshit smells like.

Actually, there have been several mass shootings that were stopped by armed citizens. They seldom get credit and are usually prosecuted for the crime of embaressing the police and may be shot at. It has been reported that one armed citizen at the El Paso Walmart who was excorting a large number of people to safety was nearly shot by the police.

Dilandu wrote:Seriously, what happens with yours America? Even 90s Russia wasn't that bad. Yes, there were mafia wars and crime shootings (with quite a lot of bystander casualties), but not on that scale.

At the risk of seeming hostile in response to your condolences that are greatly appreciated, I would point out that the homicide rate in the US is much lower than in Russia.